Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I'll also argue, until someone presents me with >contradictory evidence, that even the phrase itself--"Leica look"--is of >comparatively recent origin. > >Within this context, I'd argue that few RF photographers of the 40s and 50s >called particular attention to the optical quality of the lens as Eric >seems to employ the notion. Rather, they moved more or less promiscuously >among Canon, Leica, Zeiss, and Nikon RF systems, mixing lenses and bodies >as need and opportunity arose a Time-Life staffer: did the cover for Life featuring >the tower from which the sniper murdered a number of people in Dallas in >the late 60s among others ***** (Not unless they moved the tower there after Charles Whitman climbed in and wrecked havoc! I believe it was either Austin or San Antonio I believe - Lee Harvey O did his work in Dallas. Whitman was at U.T. :-) ) ***** > >Instead, I argue, this generation of photo-journalists broadly established >a body of work, most of which was made with RFs, that exhibits a unique >style of photography that we now associate principally with Leica, but that >was, in reality, an artifact of the RF- based technology at their disposal. >The problem, of course, is that hardly anyone regularly shoots (or >publishes) images these days employing these cameras, and the Leica M >series has become the defacto 35mm RF standard. So it's almost invariably >a matter of comparing apples and oranges, because "Leica look" can only >signify if juxtoposed against the un-Leica (ie: SLR); but I'll stand by >the main speculation of my original post. RF users must develop techniques >for framing and focusing their images that SLR users need not employ. >Chandos Great post...sniper nest mislocation aside! ;-) B. D.